Welcome to the Fishing Report. It is a beautiful morning. Though the temperature is 28 degrees it feels like summer compared to yesterday morning. Today there is no wind. Townsend is very quiet so far. We probably have quite a few visitors because of the holiday weekend and Valentines Day. We were busy here yesterday. When the warm weather finally comes we are going to be very busy.

Much of the snow melted in the valley. I can still see it in the mountains. Little River looks great and the water flow is getting back to normal. The flow this morning is 352 cubic feet per second (cfs). Normal for this date is 311 cfs. The water temperature is 38 degrees up two from yesterday.

I ran into a guy fishing near the swinging bridge this morning. He said he caught one trout yesterday. I met another angler yesterday morning. He said the fishing was good on Friday. These local guys are doing well in the river through town. The man I talked to this morning said TWRA is going to stock some big brood fish in a week. That seems odd to me. They usually do that in November or December. When that happens you can catch some 20” to 25” rainbows. I just checked the winter stocking schedules online and didn’t see anything about loading up Little River with trout in February. But, these brood fish stockings may not be listed as scheduled.

There are still plenty of roads closed in the park due to snow and ice. Highway 441 from Gatlinburg to Cherokee is closed. Little River Road is closed. Laurel Creek Road to Cades Cove is closed and so is the Foothills Parkway. I think you can drive up the Middle Prong to the Institute but I’m not positive.

Guess what? More snow is on the way today, through Monday night. The National Weather Service reports a chance for 1 to 4 inches through tomorrow night. They say it will snow then turn to rain until tonight. Then it will turn back to snow. The temperature will drop to the low 20’s or below tomorrow night and it will remain cold and below average for a few days.

I was looking online last night for a new .22 rifle. I thought I would buy a lever action Winchester since I shot one Christmas Eve and could actually hit something with it. Winchester stopped making a lever action .22 rifle. I couldn’t believe it. I thought I was overlooking it on their website. Chuck verified my findings this morning. They don’t make them anymore. I like lever guns. I have a big bore lever action 45/70 and I can hit well with it. I also have a 94 Winchester 30/30 that I like but it doesn’t have the knock down power of the 45/70.

I want a .22 lever action to practice with this summer to get ready for hunting next fall. Then I’ll switch to the 45/70 or 30/30 for hunting. The only difference will be, the 45/70 almost knocks you down when you fire it. And hopefully, it will knock down a wild boar too. I guess I’ll look at a Henry .22. I’ve heard good things about them.